


Progress (stuck in a waiting game)

by never_bloom_again



Series: Deserving of Love (Hotch/Rossi) [5]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Cute, Idiots in Love, Insecurity, Letters, Love Confessions, Love Letters, M/M, Nearly getting together, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Beta Read, Pining, Progress Has Been Made, Sad (ish?), Sweet, Unrequited Love, angsty, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24038110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/never_bloom_again/pseuds/never_bloom_again
Summary: Aaron is watching, waiting as the time slowly clicks down.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/David Rossi
Series: Deserving of Love (Hotch/Rossi) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1723459
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	Progress (stuck in a waiting game)

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally took the leap! Stuff is happening!

Hotch breathed out a sigh of relief. Life was looking pretty good at the moment. Fences were slowly being mended with Haley, and whilst both parties thankfully understood that there was nothing left between them, things were easier, less tense. In the infrequent breaks between cases, Jack was allowed to spend time with his father, which made everyone’s days. Haley got a break, Jack got to see his dad, his hero, and Aaron got to see the person he loved more than anything else in the world.

And that wasn’t the only thing going well. Given the disastrous possibilities, his plan in regards to one David Rossi seemed to be going well, and somewhere, underneath the stress, anxiety and worry, he felt happy with the progress he was making. The men got along amicably, and the tension was slowly dissipating. Aaron hoped that one day soon the friendship that lay beneath would have regained enough strength to stand beneath the weight of the admission ready to leap from its place tucked away deep inside his mind, in his heart, the result of the near worthless attempts to hide what he truly felt.

And he acknowledged the progress, was so unbelievably grateful for the leaps and bounds that had been made in their friendship, but in a way it was going too slowly. Every day he went into work and saw Dave it got harder to hold back on saying what he felt, particularly when the man seemed so... down. If he could, if it were right, Hotch would grab him, right there, and hold him tight, never letting go. He would tell him that everything would be okay, no matter how large the issue was.

But that was wrong. He couldn’t. He could never. Because they were just co-workers. And friends. But neither of those relationships entitled Aaron to do what he wanted to Dave. No matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much he wished he could change what David felt for his own personal gain. 

On the flip side however, Hotch wanted nothing more than to hold onto these days, these moments before the time finally felt right, this time where everything was safe, there was nothing bad happening between them, and the impending disaster was far enough away that Aaron could turn a blind eye to it, as much as one can ignore something that seems to be taking control of oneself.

There was nothing he could do by then however, he had started the clock, and it was now a time bomb, slowly counting down the days, hours, minutes, seconds. He couldn’t speed it up, slow it down, or stop it at all. This was happening, that wouldn’t change. It was too late now, just a waiting game now.

So he would do what he did best, he would work, and he would do his best to get lost in it. He needed a distraction, and would do his best to find it in the dark, grisly cases, trying to save just one more person. Because he couldn’t be distracted from that, not if he wanted to keep people safe, keep his team safe.

And when he was at home, when he couldn’t be working, when he had to compartmentalise, keep the horrors of work as far from his family as he could, he would plan for the future, because he still had no clue what he would be doing in the second stage of his plan. Which was something he probably should work out, if he wanted it all to go well, and be as little like a complete trainwreck as he could make it.

He hated the overwhelming abundance of ways he could do it. It made him more nervous than it had originally, only really realising after time had passed the amount of influence that could have on how well David took it. He wanted it to be personal, but he honestly wasn’t sure he could bear the pain of an upfront rejection.

That ruled out talking, telling him face to face. He couldn’t tell anyone else, so he couldn’t just use a proxy, that would be far too humiliating, to tell anyone else the way he felt, the way he knew he shouldn’t. He could send an email, but that seemed to be distant, too meaningless, and he knew Garcia would probably find that anyway. A letter? That could work, it felt like it was intimate enough, but also he could leave it for Dave to find, and then run for miles, not see him, talk to him again - well at least until they were back at work. And then he would deal with it in some way. Probably ignoring the issue until he was forced to confront reality. That seemed the best course of action, the easiest one. Aaron had done enough responding to problems in his personal life for probably the next year, at least.

\-- 

They were back from another case. It was hard, but when did they ever have an easy case? But this was hard in a way that took a toll on Aaron in a way beyond pure exhaustion. They were finally back in the office, all preparing to head home for the night, but not Hotch. He was staying in his office, finishing paperwork, because at that point, he had no reason to go home. Jack was with Jessica, and would stay there all night, and given how he was feeling, he didn’t think he could stand his empty home right now. What he could stand was the mind numbing paperwork he was so accustomed to doing after ever case, so he would do that, at least until everyone left.

Then, Aaron knew the time was right. The bomb was ticking right down to the last few hours, and then it would be done. He had a letter to write, one that he had mulled over for days that still hadn’t come to him. But as people trailed out of the office, one by one, with their farewells, the words came to him. So he let the emotion overcome him, take him over, and then put words to paper. Sometimes poetic, sometimes bold, sometimes just brutally honest in a way that hurt so, so much as every word he wrote simultaneously overwhelmed him and gave him a gasp of air as he drowned under the weight of everything.

He truly could not say how long he had been sitting there, channeling his heart through the pen when the feelings began to give way, his head finally reached the surface and stayed there. He signed his name quickly, ending it all with a “Sincerely, Aaron”. He folded the paper that weighed oh so much, if just from all the emotion the sheet contained. He opened an envelope, placed the letter inside, watching blindly as a teardrop fell onto the stark white paper.

“David Rossi”, the cursive read, in writing clearly muddled by fatigue and blurred eyes. The envelope was sealed and tucked away on the neat desk in the office over from his, as he walked out, taking comfort in the fact that he wouldn’t see Dave for three days, two after he had seen the note. 

Aaron walked out of the office, looking back once, well aware that if worst came to worst, then this could be one of the last times that he left from the builidng that had been his home for so many years.

But that was not something he could dwell on. He would go home, and enjoy three days of peace - as much as one can have peace with a very young child, and enough inner turmoil to bring a weaker man to his knees..

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if the next part will be the letter, or Rossi finding it. Do you guys want to see the contents of the letter, or would you rather I leave it unsaid?
> 
> I love and appreciate you all :) thank you so much for reading! Comments, Kudos and constructive criticism are all very appreciated.


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